“Yes,” he told her in an icy voice as he looked right through her. “You were a means to an end my family needed. Nothing more.”
“And me?” I whispered in a tight voice. “What was I?”
When his gaze shot back to me, it was like a switch flipped inside him. His eyes glazed with regret and guilt. “You are everything, Amara. Everything. Haven’t I shown you by now that I love you?”
“Stop!” I cried weakly, my tears falling freely as my heart shattered a little more. “How can you say that to me? How… Oh God!” I bent in half and breathed deeply through my nose until the threat of vomit was gone.
“Baby!” He touched my arm, and I jerked away from him.
“No!” I screamed, thankful I could speak once again. “Did you fuck her?”
“I’m not that kind of girl,” Lindsey told me in a hate-filled tone. “I don’t jump into bed with any guy who shows me the least bit of attention. I’m not you and Riley.”
“The only thing we’ve done is kiss,” Cash tried to reassure me. “And not even that after you came into my life.”
“But you’ve still been seeing her, right?” I shook my head, already knowing the answer to that question. “You’ve been playing us both all along. This was all just part of the end game for your grandmother.”
All this time, I had been so concerned about him making sure he didn’t regret not helping out his grandmother. I pushed him to come home without me to take care of it—of this!
“Not you!” Cash exploded vehemently. “This—what we have—isn’t a game, Dreamer. I love you.”
“Don’t say that,” I screamed and pushed past him and Lindsey. “You don’t get to say those words to me now.”
“I didn’t even know you and Lindsey were connected until after I got back from the festival,” he tried to explain.
“You mean after you asked me to be your girlfriend, and you still kept seeing my friend on the side?” I laughed, but my tears made it crack. “Was that when you realized the hole in your plan?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Amara, it wasn’t like that.”
“That is exactly how it looks!” I glared from him to Lindsey. “I’m out of here. Are you coming?”
She looked surprised by my question. “You’re leaving? Don’t you want to hear the rest of what he has to say?”
“Nope. I don’t want to hear another word out of his lying, cheating mouth.”
She held the towel closer against her. “Well, I do. I’m not leaving yet.”
Jealousy burned through me, but I turned away from both of them. She was forgetting that I knew her better than anyone else. She didn’t just want answers. I’d seen the possessive look in her eyes. Maybe she was pissed at Cash, but she still wanted him. The whole conditioner ploy was just to get him to see her naked, because I’d left a bottle of my own conditioner there weeks ago. “Suit yourself. I’m done.”
“Amara.” Cash followed me out of the bathroom. “Baby, don’t go.”
In the hall outside his room, I swung around to confront him. “Out of everything I’ve been through, nothing has hurt as much as this,” I whispered. Tears blinded me, but I made myself meet his gaze, forcing him to see just how much pain I was in.
This guy had held me through one of the toughest moments of my life. He was right there, taking care of me from the moment I called him, just like he promised. I saw a future for myself with him, loving him forever. Now, those dreams were shattered on the floor along
with my heart and the broken pieces of my soul.
“I loved you,” I told him honestly, and he flinched as if those words physically hurt him. “I loved you more than I have ever let myself love anyone else in my entire life. I thought… I thought I found someone I could share my life with.”
Strong fingers grasped my wrists and jerked me toward him. “Baby, I love you. Lindsey means nothing to me. The only reason I even saw her was because of Gigi. I didn’t touch her once you came into my life.”
“You think that what you did still wasn’t cheating?” I tried to pull away from him, but he only tightened his hold on me. “When you weren’t with me, you were out with her. You took her out on dates. She fucking told me about them all the damn time. She was happy with you. Introducing you to her father means that she cares about you. That means you were emotionally present when you were with her. You made her have feelings for you, dickhead.”
“I was only trying to help my dying grandmother out, baby. That’s it. You even pushed me to finish it.”
When my pissed eyes met his, I saw he knew he’d fucked up. “So, this is my fault?”
“No! Fuck, Amara, of course I’m not saying that. I’m just trying to explain. Baby, don’t let this come between us,” he pleaded.